1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing management system and an information management apparatus and a group management apparatus used for the printing management system, as well as storage media in which programs applied for these apparatuses are stored and corresponding information processing methods.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Known printing management apparatuses include print servers that execute plural print jobs input from multiple computers via a network and image delivery servers that deliver images to each user's computer connected to the Internet and manage printing of the delivered images with the user's computer. Various devices have been proposed to assure the efficient execution of print jobs in the print servers, whereas diverse techniques relating to image delivery and accounting have been proposed in the image delivery servers.
The prior art print servers, however, have not expected the demand for management of print jobs with multiple printing apparatuses located in a wide area, for example, in an area of different languages. The prior art image delivery servers perform accounting for image delivery and printing, but have not expected the demand for management of supplies of expendables consumed in the printing process.